Co-productions are no guarantee

The Chinese art of mythmaking

A hard look at heroes - and their heroics

Cui Yongyuan, a well-known television host, wrote on weibo (micro blog): "I cannot sleep tonight. I saw the video of the killers, the onlookers and the woman screaming. Had I been there, would I have rushed to help her? Probably not. Nobody expected to come across something like this in his life. We would not intervene and we would find excuses for our non-action. This is who we are. How did we come to this stage of cowardice? Tonight we feel a collective sense of shame."

Cui probably spoke for many who knew their own response and could not reconcile the failure to act and their moral stand. But others offered different takes. Some said that calling for help was an appropriate response given the circumstances.

Li Guoqing, CEO of Dangdang, an online bazaar, wrote: "If I were there, I would not have had the courage to be a hero. But I would have knelt down to shield her from the attack and to awaken the conscience of the attackers."

He was ridiculed for being too schmaltzy and pretentious. They saw it as a rationalization for making himself look better than he actually could be.

Han Hong, an ethnic Tibetan singer known for being blunt, wrote: "I can't take it! I'm bursting with rage! A woman was crying and nobody stepped up. So many men were walking around in the background as if nothing was happening. Our country! Our people!"

Well, she did not say what she would have done. Whatever position she might have taken, intervening or not intervening, she would have gotten a barrage of criticism, either for hypocrisy or for gutlessness.

While celebrities were in a mood of moral introspection, anonymous netizens flashed their indignation like trophies. A typical posting on weibo went like this: "I would have come forward and tried to tame the attackers!"

Later, these people were labeled "keyboard heroes" because they were said to be the same people who would have stayed at a safe distance and watched quietly as the outbreak of violence claimed its victim. There is little cost in playing up one's righteousness in a virtual landscape, but in the real world people go by a different set of rules.

The dichotomy has long been noticed by some. For example, much of the online populace show an unalloyed impatience for corruption, but if they were given the same opportunities many of them would do exactly what corrupt officials have done, if not worse, so the argument goes.

Lu Xun (1881-1936), unflinching in his expose of the Chinese character, offered a classic scene in his fiction that epitomizes the indifference of the bystander.